Pollution and light dance on the side of the Wilma Theater

About Taunya English

WHYY Senior Health Writer Taunya English tracks government policies and community efforts to overhaul the places where people live, work and play.

She's a contributor to The Pulse, WHYY's weekly radio show on health, science and innovation news.

Taunya created the series "Designs on Health" with support from the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. It's a look at the ways zoning and neighborhood influence wellbeing.

Taunya is a member of "Health Care in the States," a journalism collaborative between National Public Radio and Kaiser Health News, which works to expand reporting on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Taunya produced the series "In the Gap." Across 12 installments of news and conversation, WHYY partnered with WURD to explore the divide that separates African Americans from better health.

Taunya's radio work airs during Morning Edition, All Things Considered and NewsWorks Tonight. Her television stories appear on Delaware's newsmagazine, First.

Before joining WHYY, Taunya led statehouse news coverage for Public Radio Capitol News in Harrisburg, Pa. For three years, she worked as a freelance health reporter for Baltimore's National Public Radio affiliate, WYPR.

Taunya began her journalism career as a newspaper reporter in Northern California, then moved on to become a science writer in Washington, DC. She holds a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

A new, outdoor art installation — projected onto the face of the Wilma Theater — is adding more color to the bright lights along Broad Street in Philadelphia.

The display is a collaboration between New Mexico digital artist Andrea Polli and Philadelphia's own smoggy air. Most of the time, the "Particle Falls" exhibit will show a flickering blue and white waterfall.

"But if there is a lot of particulate pollution, you start to see orange and red dots flickering over the waterfall, and if there's really a lot of particulate pollution the waterfall almost transforms to a fireball," said Polli, who teaches at the Social Media Work Group at the University of New Mexico.

Polli consults with scientists to find visual — and immediate — ways to convey the complexity of issues such climate change. Her Philadelphia exhibited is powered by a nearby air-quality monitor, called a nephelometer

"Sometimes people call it the sniff-o-lometer," she said. Polli said she used some of the tools used by true scientists, but maintains her exhibit is art, not science.

"Perhaps you could say it's a citizen science experiment," she said.

The monitor takes a new reading every 15 seconds.

"It's really, almost a real time response. So if, for example, you are walking down the street and you happen to light up a cigarette near the nephelmeter you'll probably see a pretty strong reaction.

A idling truck spewing fumes, or a plane flying overhead, could also set off the color display.

"One of the things in the development of the piece that was kind of a challenge was to figure out how to create something that's interesting, but without encouraging people to create more particulate pollution," Polli said.

The Chemical Heritage Foundation (a WHYY underwriter) is sponsoring the exhibit and a panel discussion tonight about the interesection of art and science.

"I think that scientists and engineers sometimes have a hard time conveying complexity. There's a lot of times a large understanding gap," said Youngmoo Kim, director of the Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center at Drexel University

He's joining Polli during the panel discussion on "Particle Falls."

"It's not a static sort of exhibit, it changes based on the environment and the time of day," Kim said. "As it gets more active people will realize there's more, so called particulate matter — little particles in the air that people are actually breathing in."

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